This Friday’s featured artist is Sara Drake and her amazingly illustrated handmade 3D maps and globes!I love her combination of intricate details, humor, and variety of media! So fun!The majority of Sara’s maps are made to commission. She works closely with clients to create unique and individual pieces.

Sara writes:​"The maps are all hand build and hand painted from a range of materials. Like most artists, I have to armchair travel the majority of the time when creating a map. Normally my research is done at home, on the internet or by looking through old maps, books, magazines and atlases. Occasionally I have been lucky enough to be invited to make my maps in situ or to visit the places I am featuring. Any excuse to hop on a plane and see a new part of the world and I'm in!"

"I build up the 3D relief for mountains and other geographical features, using carved foam and then cover this in a thin layer of very fine, tissue paper papier mache. The next process is to undercoat the base and lay on the base colours of the sea and continents with acrylic paint. Then comes the painted surface detail and a layer of protective varnish, before adding beads, sand, glass etc. to add texture to the map surface.

All the features including buildings, animals, people, modes of transport etc. are handmade and handpainted. Most are carved from balsa wood, but I use a wide range of other materials to achieve the desired effect. These include architectural foam, beads, wire and anything else I can scavenge or salvage that looks like it might one day come in useful."

Be sure to visit Sara Drake's website at www.saradrake.com to see many more images and details of her fabulous maps!